Old Republic 'a WoW clone'

Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz has issued a damning verdict of EA and BioWare's upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Claiming that he was "largely unimpressed" by what he described as a "game that's highly derivative of World of Warcraft" which sports visuals that are "competent but hardly breathtaking", Creutz wrote:

"Despite promises from EA/Bioware that the title represents a major step forward in MMO design, what we saw was essentially a World of Warcraft clone with Star Wars character skins and the BioWare RPG nice/nasty dialogue tree mechanism bolted on for non-player character conversations."

The industry remains in the dark as to when Star Wars: The Old Republic will eventually see the light the light of day, though 2012 is looking increasingly likely.